Tunisia’s Loss, Algeria’s Gain

A key boost to Algeria’s 2017 finances came from sales of gas and oil products to Tunisia, where crude output fell 16%.

Tunisia largely imports oil from seaborne markets, with net imports hitting a record 81,000 b/d in August. But for gas the only choice is to buy from Algeria, via offtake from the Algeria-Italy ‘TransMed’ pipeline which crosses Tunisia.

Tunisia shelled out 1.355bn dinars ($567mn) on Algerian gas in the first ten months of 2017, up 32% in dollar terms on...